China pork processor WH Group Ltd. announced that its new American-style packaged meats factory located at Zhengzhou Shuanghui Industrial Park, Henan, is officially in operation.

The factory was built by WH Group’s subsidiary, Henan Shuanghui Investment & Development Co. Ltd., and all related products will be using the trademark of its U.S. sister company, Smithfield Foods, Smithfield, Va.

WH Group invested $123.4 million to introduce up to 176 sets of leading automated meat processing equipment from the United States, Germany, France and Switzerland, and strictly adheres to the construction regulations for Chinese food enterprises and uses authentic U.S. raw materials and technologies to achieve the highest food safety and quality standards.

The factory mainly produces American-style bacon, American-style ham and American-style sausages at a daily production capacity of 100 tons.

“The completion of the new factory allows us to directly provide high-quality and genuine American-style, low-temperature packaged meat products to the Chinese market,” says Wan Long, chairman of the board of WH Group and CEO of Shuanghui Development. “This project sets a milestone of synergy between our Chinese and U.S. corporations since WH Group’s acquisition of Smithfield Foods. Smithfield Foods is the world’s leading company across the industry in terms of food safety, product quality and brand reputation. Although Smithfield Foods and China’s Shuanghui have different cultural backgrounds, they share the same goal–to provide quality, healthy and safe meat products to consumers. The completion of Zhengzhou Shuanghui’s American-style factory enables us to introduce this authentic American brand with a heritage of 80 years into China, and to share the appealing American food culture with more consumers. We believe that the success of this project will boost the structural adjustment and transformation of China’s meat industry, leading to a new meat consumption trend in China.”